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ADVANCED DATA RECOVERY & DATA FORENSICS

DATA RECOVERY GUIDE

Hard Disk Drive Motor Failure: A typical hard drive motor usually spins between 4200rpm and can go up to 15000rpm in high-end end desktop or server hard drives. This is precisely controlled by firmware- information held in the system area of the hard drive-to enable synchronisation for reading the data from the platters. Hard drive motor can fail in two ways; it won't either spin or won't start. In this case the motor gets stuck and you can usually feel a slight vibration or hear a humming sound on the drive when it powers up. Erratic speed variations of the motor may cause the drive to take an extended period of time to come to the 'Ready' state. Please note that prolonged or repeatedly powering up the hard drive could  cause further damage. Turn the computer off or disconnect the hard drive and call the Data Recovery Lab technicians on 0845 257 9164 who would advise you what to do next.

Hard Disk Drive not seen in BIOS: BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System and it simply provides a set of instructions to your computer, telling it how to start, and how to interface to the first 'Boot' device. When it reaches the first boot device, it then receives further instructions from there to follow up, and eventually loads your operating system if everything is OK. During the start-up, the BIOS may fail to detect the hard drive, and therefore it is not listed by the BIOS during POST. First, check all connections and try again. If it still doesn't  work, failure to recognise the hard drive may have been caused by a number of factors, like corrupt boot sector. However, at start-up, your computer you can tell whether the drive has been detected by the BIOS or not. Power up the computer, and look for the on-screen instruction to tell you how to enter the BIOS. Usually this is achieved by pressing F1, F2 or DEL keys.  Examine the menus for options on viewing the BIOS IDE peripheral setup and set your BIOS to automatically detect IDE drives. On some BIOSes there is an option to "automatically detect hard drives now". If you run this option and the computer 'hangs' or appears inactive for a a minute or more then it is likely that your Hard Disk Drive has failed to be recognised by the system BIOS. Before getting too worried, power down the computer and unplug the hard disk and check if all the jumpers on the hard drive are set correctly according to the hard disk manufacturer's instructions. Incorrect jumper setting can prevent the hard drive from being detected by the BIOS. In some hard drives such as IBM and Hitachi, incorrect settings will corrupt the data and damage the logical structure of the hard disk. Again, at this stage, you need to consult a Data Recovery Lab technician who would advise you what to do next. Remember, data recovery analysis and consultation is FREE with Data Recovery 247. Unlike many other UK data recovery companies, we do not charge for data recovery analysis or data recovery consultancy. You only pay if we successfully recover your data.

Power Surge, Reversed Polarity, Power Supply plugged in the wrong way around:
This is a frequent occurrence - particularly plugging the power lead in the wrong way around. Despite the shape of the molex connector, the cheaper versions are often are made of a soft plastic and can easily be plugged in incorrectly. Often this results in the drive appearing totally
dead with no noise coming from the motor and an unpleasant burning smell. This is specially true if you try to plug a laptop hard drive in a USB enclosure or if you plug the laptop hard drive to a an IDE-to-laptop connector incorrectly. You must make sure you do the right the thing as the outcome of your mistakes can be disastrous. Similar faults occur when the power surge can damage the computer motherboard and hard drive circuitry. In this case, you must immediately unplug the computer from the mains power supply and withdraw the hard drive to a safe place until data recovery can take place.

> If you have any questions or concerns, please do contact us on 0207 516 1077. We are fully committed to easing the fear and frustration that is normally associated with recovering from a data loss. Next time, do make sure your back up your data!

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